Ascend Integrated Media - Custom Matters Blog

What Makes an Ad Campaign Successful?

Ashley Puderbaugh — Thu, 24 May 2012 22:36:42 +0000

By Brennah Tate, Media Sales

There are eight secret ways to make your advertising campaign great:

1. Make a news announcement, or ask a provocative question. Your intro is 70 percent responsible for the success of your ad.

2. An ad is not the place for a logical argument or justification. The job of the ad is to get a response. This does not mean that you don’t want to list factual information in your ads. You absolutely want to list facts that give benefits that create strong emotions.

3. A vertical photo attracts more attention than a horizontal one. Studies also show that the size of your photograph is important. When you double the size of a photo, you double the average amount of copy a person will read. That’s how you get more effective advertising.

4. Always use captions with your photos. Twice as many people will read the caption than the text copy.

5. Buy a bigger ad. Effective advertising communication takes space. Don’t try to cram it all into a little box. The best advertisements need room to bloom. A half page advertisement will pull 70 percent of the business a full-page ad will. A quarter page ad will pull 50 percent of a full page. Is the cost difference worth it?

6. Use the problem/solution format to create effective advertising. “Hungry? Try Our .99 Double Cheeseburger.” Always ask questions that get a, “Yes, that’s me,” reply.

7. Effective advertising connects your marketing together. Mention your newsletter in your emails, your emails in your ads, your ads in your brochures, your brochures on your calendars, your calendars on your business cards, etc. Connect them all as much as possible for more effective advertising.

8. Surprise your reader. Throw them a curve. Give them the desire to know more. Effective advertising leaves your audience a little curious.

Let’s play a game. How many do you remember?

1. Where’s the beef???
2. Got ___???
3. Be all that you can be.
4. Just do it.
5. Maybe she's born with it, Maybe it's ______.
6. Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.
7. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
8. What would you do for a _____ bar?
9. With a name like _______ ... it has to be good.
10. Every kiss begins with ____.

Answers: 1. Wendy’s, 2. Milk, 3. Army, 4. NIKE, 5. Maybelline, 6. M&M’s, 7. Almond Joy/Mounds, 8. Klondike, 9. Smuckers, 10. Kay Jewelers

Don’t Abandon Print at Your Meeting

Ashley Puderbaugh — Thu, 10 May 2012 22:36:56 +0000

By Eric Jacobson, Vice President, Media Development

Engaging your meeting attendees with smartphone apps, text messaging, tablets, live streaming, video and other electronic technologies is becoming increasingly popular.

But most meetings haven’t abandoned their print materials completely. And there’s good reason not to.

Recent research across the more than 50 association conferences and meetings with which we partner reveals that attendees, primarily in the health care industry, still engage with print materials. Even while they also are engaging with the newly introduced apps, texting messaging and other electronic offerings.

Here are the facts. Note the frequency “old-fashioned” sharing of printed materials that’s going on:

• 72 percent of attendees surveyed find pre-meeting planner content helpful in planning their meeting experience.

• 52 percent of respondents share their pre-meeting planner copy with their colleagues.

• 63 percent of respondents share their meeting daily newspaper copy with their colleagues.

• 78 percent of attendees find an association-provided city guide useful in navigating the meeting host city and for planning activities.

• 78 percent of attendees want to receive symposia-related preview information either before the meeting or on-site.

Our research also shows that:

• 33 percent of attendees visit a booth in response to an advertisement in printed materials.

• Exhibitors who advertise attract 55 percent more attendees than exhibitors who do not advertise.

Going green, engaging electronically and staying current certainly are all important. But, don’t give up on print. Print still has its place at your meeting. It’s still an effective method for engaging with your attendees.

And, to make your print materials increasingly eco-friendly:

• Used recycled paper.

• Move some of the content online that becomes accessible via QR codes in your printed materials.

• Place presentation/workshop/seminar papers and handouts in a virtual tote bag.

Finally, the key is delivering the right mix of electronic and print.

What are the print materials you believe are the most important for your meeting?

The Privilege of Marketing Access

Ashley Puderbaugh — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:35:09 +0000

By Darren Sextro, Vice President, Sales

One thing that most of our client-partners have in common is that they hold the key to something valuable: audiences to which others want access. In a world that now hinges on targeted reach, it’s not an advantage to overlook, nor is it one to undervalue.

The very best marketing, or at least the most common marketing, now seeks quality and not necessarily quantity. Total numbers are nice, yes, but they rarely trump the power of an audience that has in some way pre-qualified itself for some type of behavior.

So if you’re a gatekeeper to one of those audiences, step back for a moment and take pride in what you have. For example, one of our clients, a leading medical association, produces the very best research in a particular specialty, then delivers that research throughout the year in a series of smartly produced educational meetings, some of which include exhibit floors. When a marketer begins to question the value of reaching the audiences at these meetings and on these exhibit floors, I sometimes want to bluntly ask, “Are you kidding me? Given the option to connect with influencers who pay to be part of this association, believe in this level of research and education, invest in these meetings and very likely are already at least somewhat aware of your brand, you are still questioning the potential return on your investment?”

Yes, “return on investment.” It’s a phrase that’s legitimate but frustrating because of how anonymous these audiences want to remain and how immeasurable is the path between brand outreach and a final transaction. Market research firm Baxter Research Center posits that marketers should actually be measuring the return on four “intermediate objectives”: exposure and engagement, audience involvement, preliminary buying behavior and active buying behavior.

And there’s no more direct way to get to these intermediate objectives than access to a pre-qualified audience. Exhibiting at a meeting or trade show, advertising in a membership publication or digital platform — these are unique opportunities to gain access to an audience that exhibits all of the behaviors of engagement.

If you hold access to one of these audiences, what frustrates you about a marketer’s lack of understanding about your audience?

If you’re a marketer, what’s your perception of “return on intermediate objectives” versus the traditional “return on investment?”

Looking at Video?

Ashley Puderbaugh — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:24:08 +0000

By Maria Arnone, Vice President Media Development

The U.S. comScore Video Metrix stats for February 2012 show that 179 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 38 billion videos of online video content during that month. Other interesting findings from February 2012 include:

• 83.8 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

• The duration of the average online content video was 6.2 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

• Video ads accounted for 16.6 percent of all videos viewed and 1.3 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

Were you among that 83.8 percent watching online video? If you were, so were your members. And now might be the right time to assess your video communications plan — or lack thereof.

Perhaps you have been dabbling with a flip camera assigned to one of your team members at your latest meeting. Did the resulting YouTube video inspire your membership and executive management?

We’ve been expanding our clients’ daily news video efforts here at Ascend over the last few months, and I thought it would be interesting to share some of our lessons. We mounted a full-blown news product at a large retail show last month. This client was deeply grounded in an Ascend-produced print daily news vehicle, but we had added innovative online extensions in eNewsletters and an event site with an online exhibitor guide over the years that kept their outreaches to their contingency fresh.

We collectively knew the product at this retail show was just made for video. The show floor’s color, size, sounds and fun is pretty legendary. We worked with our expert video partner to execute, but brought all of our deep knowledge of the client’s objectives and challenges to the script writing and production. The result was an exciting and successful first effort on-site, in the post-show communication — and pre-show promotion for the next event. Here were some of our lessons:

• We worked across the convention team and communication team to collaborate and get the pieces that would make each of their departments shine.

• We engaged a talent who seemed to — right off the bat — embody the corporate brand and give an injection of fun and life to the narration of their event.

• We used powerful sound bites from executives, mixed with candid reactions from pleased attendees to show the direction of the company and demonstrate why non-attendees need to consider attending the next event.

We included the videos in our daily eBlasts. One eBlast prominently featuring the video garnered a 54 percent open rate with a 14 percent click-through. We’re currently using some of the footage to develop a great promotion piece for the next event. The client is very pleased and we’re working on getting the underwriting for the next, expanded production already.

Have you been navigating the video world? What are some of your stories?

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Ashley Puderbaugh — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:42:55 +0000

By Cam Bishop, CEO

Over the course of the last three years or so, the media and event industries have taken a major beating due to a combination of the economic downturn and the paradigm shift occurring from changes and uncertainties created by the Internet.

It was particularly interesting and telling last year when the U.S. government’s debt was downgraded. Ascend has a team of 10 media sales specialists who sell print and digital advertising, event and trade show sponsorships and exhibit booth space for many of our 60+ clients. Quite literally, within 10 days of the U.S. credit downgrade, they began to detect a very material shift in tone, confidence and media spend as they had discussions with hundreds of clients and prospects. This virtual sea change in demeanor occurred across all 20 of the B2B, health care and consumer market sectors that Ascend’s clients represent.

Since Ascend largely sells from two to six months in advance for its clients’ projects, the broad-based decrease in business and consumer confidence really impacted fourth quarter business last year. The net affect was a client base and an Ascend team member and customer base that largely began 2011 with a cautiously optimistic tenor, a pretty good start on the year and then ended the year rather discouraged.

But then, a new day dawned as we entered 2012. Several new clients came on board for the year after months of discussions and planning. (Welcome IMEX, EnergyWorks KC, American Heart Association exhibit booth sales, American Society for Public Administration, Alzheimers Association, Professional Convention Management Association, National Indian Gaming Association, World Mining Expo, Bizbash, Association of Change Management Professionals and CalPers!)

Projects for clients suddenly began to not just hit goals but consistently over-deliver. And exceed goals, they have indeed. Some results have just been off-the-charts successful. Take our work for American Heart Association’s annual Stroke Meeting. Sales results for this event were more than double last year’s, as well as being an all-time revenue record.

Following closely on the heels of the Stroke meeting came the American Academy of Dermatology. While we’ve broken many revenue records for this client over the 20 or so years we’ve partnered with them, 2012 was an all-time record high. Off-the-charts performance for one of our top five largest meeting clients.

Suddenly, around the office, we could see a change in tone and energy and confidence. There is a level of excitement and enthusiasm and optimism that most likely, most media companies and agencies haven’t experienced for years.

So, suddenly, hey, this business is a lot of fun! Things are growing, business is moving, new ideas are launching. There’s a vibrant energy that continues to build on itself.

No better example could be made than our current work for another long-term partner client, the American Thoracic Society. Our work selling print and digital advertising as well as their sponsorship inventory is nothing short of fantastic. With a May meeting and weeks to go before all media and sponsorship inventory is closed, this event is already at 121 percent of last year’s all-time record.

For both our Ascend team members and our partner clients, the icing on the cake is the fact that, across the board, media sales and repping work for our custom magazine and journal publishing clients is following a very similar increasing trend. Two repping clients already are seeing bookings at 60 percent to 80 percent of last year’s total business.

It’s just more proof that a rising tide lifts all boats.

Hey, this is fun. Why not climb on board the Ascend ship and rise with us?

Activate Your Marketing Dollars

Ashley Puderbaugh — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:38:23 +0000

By Tricia Walsh, Vice President, Media Development

I recently attended the PCMA Partner Conference in Chicago. The conference was rich with idea-generation on how to fully maximize sponsorship dollars and discussions of activating marketing plans. I learned it is essential that we cut through the clutter and drive home richly integrated, targeted and personal stories. While this is important for Ascend's own campaigns, it also applies to our clients as they build their own marketing plans.

Rick Jones of Fish Bait Marketing spoke during the conference and exposed many truths to our society’s behavior toward messaging. Incorporating your customers’ stories — not always driving your company’s own story — is critical. Creating a message that allows customers to interpret their own story is far more impactful than painting a picture with no room for exploration. He referenced Las Vegas’ “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” and Dos Equis’ “The most interesting man in the world” campaigns. Isn’t the lure of these campaigns the fact that we, as customers, fill in our own interpretation, therefore personalizing and ‘owning’ the campaign as our own? It is a campaign we will remember because it is comprised of our own stories.

We discussed too, that when building a media plan, a single ad buy will not have the reach we need. We need to develop not only the personal side to the campaign’s story, but then integrate that message across ads and also take advantage of the interactive elements at our disposal. A more driven campaign could take that banner and/or ad page, incorporate 2-D barcodes, and even incorporate a social element.

Perhaps the 2-D bar code could take customers to your website’s survey/polling feature, to a testimonial video, to your blog or to other marketing materials. Taking advantage of pre-meeting/conference materials is often an exclusive right to your audience — where you can begin telling your story and setting the stage for your campaign. Including special invitations to events where your service or product is showcased, or better yet, integrated into the actual event builds the personalization of your story. Consider a social element before, during and even after the event in which customers must check back to your website regularly to view contest or poll/survey results and post personal stories, for example.

It is a fun (and yes, challenging) time for marketers as we all explore how to cut through the clutter and develop a more personal side to promotional campaigns, while integrating campaigns into print, digital, social, video and mobile platforms.

What are some of your success stories?

The Value in “Value” Advertisements

Ashley Puderbaugh — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:58:21 +0000

By Evan Palmer, Media Sales Consultant

When I first started at Ascend, I was told my primary focus was going to be in dealing with listing enhancements and options we, at Ascend, can create for the potential advertiser. At first glance, highlighted listings can seem mundane and possibly even inferior to larger advertising options, which certainly give advertisers great potential visibility.

When looking to create buzz about your product or company, there is something about a full-page print advertisement that still has great value in the various industries we serve. Not only does a full-page (or even half-page) give you ample space to create an eye-popping advertisement, it leaves you with options. Would the advertiser like to speak more to their brand, or a product they might be highlighting at their booth during the show? What different goals do you hope to accomplish with the ad?

One of the basic realities of the marketing world is that many companies do not have the advertising budgets for a larger ad. This is one thing Ascend understands. We create options for companies that can fulfill all types of budgets. One of those basic advertisements that make perfect sense, on a number of levels, is the highlighted listing with logo. Typically ranging in price from about $150 to $250, the highlighted listing with logo gives companies the opportunity to stand out within the A–Z section of a directory, by adding a company logo to a pre-existing, mostly meager listing.

After working with many smaller advertisers, one thing one thing I know true is that companies that purchase highlighted listings get their return on investment. Think about it — if one new customer comes by your booth because they noticed your listing, while browsing through a multitude of companies in the directory, your advertisement will have immediately paid for itself.

When I look back on a project, I often wonder why more exhibitors were not interested in this simple, yet very effective advertisement. It just makes sense that if a company has paid that much money for booth space, why not spend a little bit more to stand out?

I was having a conversation with one of my sales colleagues the other day, and she told me a story about how pleased an advertiser of hers was with the highlighted listing she had purchased a few months prior. With more and more companies exhibiting, inexpensively standing out from your competitors can go a long way towards having a successful tradeshow.

Be Strong: Ask for Help

Ashley Puderbaugh — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:50:04 +0000

By Eric Jacobson, Vice President, Media Development

It takes more strength to ask for help than it does to not ask for help. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. Rather, it’s a sign of knowing when to seek assistance to help you become more effective and successful.

Athletes seek out trainers. Professionals of all ages engage with mentors. Budding actors work with acting coaches.

And, in nearly every case, the associations with whom we partner had the strength to ask for our help. Each had pain. Communication pain. Decreasing meeting attendance pain. Poor vendor performance pain. Workload pain.

Rather than ignore and struggle along with that pain, they asked for help — sometimes reaching out to us, sometimes opening up during a call or meeting initiated by us.

Having worked with dozens of associations for the past 30 years, we are good at listening to the pain an organization is experiencing and then recommending options and possible solutions. Those recommendations include the best practices we witness every day as we create custom print, digital and mobile content designed to engage audiences, increase meeting attendance and build membership.

Here’s a list of the most common pain points we hear from associations. Which ones match up with your pain points?

1. Our internal staff doesn’t have time to sell ads into our print and digital products.

2. Our exhibit sales vendor isn’t communicating effectively with us.

3. We need to make our meeting more eco-friendly.

4. Our staff has been reduced and we no longer have the ability to create content in-house.

5. We don’t have internal expert medical writers.

6. We need to generate more revenue by better monetizing our journals, meetings and special events.

7. We have too many vendors and our projects feel disjointed.

8. We need to communicate more effectively with our members via texting, apps, tablets and other electronic channels.

9. My Board wants a whole new approach for our marketing and communications.

Perhaps not surprising, many of the associations who shared their pain with us recently needed assistance increasing their revenue. Then, by listening to their needs, strategizing with them, understanding their competition and fully immersing our sales team, we have produced these types of results:

• 139 percent of the goal/expectation for the first quarter of 2012, and already at 129 percent of goal for the first half of 2012 in less than two months of effort.

• 127 percent growth in number of advertisers in an association’s publications in 2011 versus 2010 when a different vendor worked on the project.

• Increased advertising revenue by 30 percent between 2010 versus 2009.

• Increased sales by 16 percent in 2011 versus 2010.

The first step when you have a pain point is to acknowledge that pain. Then, share that pain with someone you know likely can be of help. Ask for help. Listen to the options offered to you.

What are your pain points? What is preventing you from asking for help?

How Outsourcing Jobs Can Actually Save You Money

Ashley Puderbaugh — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 23:01:47 +0000

By Mike DeMaio, CFO

We often find that our biggest competitor during the bid process is actually the customer. The decision to outsource work versus doing it internally is not an easy decision — and it gets further complicated when trying to compare costs.

It is not uncommon for someone to say to us, “Why should I pay you $6,000 for this project when I only pay my printer $4,000 to print this?” Viewing it this way would be comparing apples and oranges. While we probably have the same $4,000 printing expense (although often times we can get better pricing than our clients can), that additional $2,000 pays for our time, but more importantly, saves our clients time and headaches.

An example closer to home would be trying to decide if you should pay someone to cut your lawn or just do it yourself. Using the thinking above, why should you pay someone $20 to cut your lawn when the only expense you have to do it yourself is about $2 in gas? What do you get for that extra $18?

Well for one, you can decide to use those two hours to spend time with the kids, go to the grocery store, watch the game or just relax. Another benefit is that you don’t need to squeeze it into your schedule (nights/weekends; working around rainy days). When you come home from work it is done. You don’t have to worry about buying and maintaining a mower or making trips to the gas station to fill up the gas can. And if your mower breaks down, who will fix it? Who will mow your lawn in the meantime? Many people find that “outsourcing” this work allows them to worry about one less thing in an otherwise busy life.

So comparing the $20 to $2 lawn-mowing “cost” would not be fair based on the qualitative benefits you get from it. The same goes for comparing the $6,000 versus the $4,000.

Clients who work with us get benefits that are hard to put a dollar figure on. We do many projects with various printers around the country and have the ability to move print schedules around. If for some reason your design team is late getting files to your printer, do you have the clout to move schedules around and avoid additional fees? In addition to these intrinsic advantages you get by outsourcing, you also benefit from our expertise. We live, eat and breathe this work — and there is certainly a value for that.

So when it comes to deciding whether to outsource, you must think about more than just costs. You need to factor your time, your staff’s time, the headaches involved and — in some cases — the lack of internal expertise for the project in question. Of course, you also get the satisfaction of checking off one more thing on your to-do list. It is hard to put a value on that.

What could you do with all the extra time that outsourcing a project might grant you?

Inside Sales Crunch?

Ashley Puderbaugh — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:06:36 +0000

By Maria Arnone, Vice President Media Development

You think you’ve got it made: a captured, devoted person to sell your exhibits, sponsorships or advertising for your annual meeting or other publications. You can train and mold this person to success, right?

We often hear from clients that even though they have a captured team within their organization, the team is not meeting its goals. Reasons for this could be:

• Lack of marketing tools or outreach in addition to the actual sales efforts: Without a drumbeat of awareness in the background or a good sales toolkit for making presentations, the sales outcome can fall flat.

• Lack of assertive enough sales approach: We’re all averse to boorish salespeople, but sales efforts for top-flight meetings that don’t visit their top prospects or aren’t looking at a large enough universe don’t get the job done.

• Inferior knowledge of market and prospects: Your folks may be contacting the obvious players, but if they don’t have a sense of the market as a whole and a consistently updated competitive analysis, they will not be contacting the prospects that are next in line for your business.

• Prioritization problems: Your team may be tasked with selling too many things, or two things that are super-important and then a host of more minor campaigns. Focus and prioritization can be a stumbling block to reaching sales goals.

Times have changed. Many of our clients, who for years could expect booth reservations or publication insertion orders to come over the fax machine, now know they can’t handle their business the same way. These same teams are getting out on the road, demonstrating the value of their products in deeper and more competitive ways and calling on a wider universe.

One of the advantages clients have in working with us, or other agencies that sell for them, is that we see what works across a wide spectrum of meetings and publications. We can compare and contrast sales campaigns and results, and position new opportunities effectively. In the case of our medical meeting spectrum, many of the same product managers make decisions for a number of the meetings we represent. That means we’re talking to them all year long, versus once a year. They get to know our offerings, we get to know their objectives — and it usually means we’re considered more of a resource for information and current media strategies.

Another effect of our unique sales approach for the meeting communications is the thoroughness of the effort. You would think all sales efforts would encompass communicating with the entire exhibit list — and communicating appropriate opportunities to that list. But we have not found that to be the case. Many times, internal teams simply don’t have the time to contact everyone. Or it’s not in their DNA. For example, in the medical arena, coming from the years of pharmaceutical companies representing 90 percent of the revenue in some meetings, we have had to adjust offerings to include smaller entry points for small exhibitors. In many cases these opportunities don’t replace what has been lost through dwindling pipelines or regulations, but we are assured that each and every exhibitor gets educated on opportunities and has an invitation to participate.

In many cases, we can add a layer of sales power on top of what you already have by deploying our efforts against a selection of prospects or products that you simply don’t have time to work. And when we take over sales from other groups, rare are the instances we don’t over-deliver on either what was sold before, or the current sales goal.

Ascend Integrated Media - Custom Matters Blog

What Makes an Ad Campaign Successful?

Answers: 1. Wendy’s, 2. Milk, 3. Army, 4. NIKE, 5. Maybelline, 6. M&M’s, 7. Almond Joy/Mounds, 8. Klondike, 9. Smuckers, 10. Kay Jewelers

Don’t Abandon Print at Your Meeting

What are the print materials you believe are the most important for your meeting?

The Privilege of Marketing Access

If you hold access to one of these audiences, what frustrates you about a marketer’s lack of understanding about your audience?

If you’re a marketer, what’s your perception of “return on intermediate objectives” versus the traditional “return on investment?”

Looking at Video?

Have you been navigating the video world? What are some of your stories?

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Hey, this is fun. Why not climb on board the Ascend ship and rise with us?

Activate Your Marketing Dollars

What are some of your success stories?

The Value in “Value” Advertisements

Be Strong: Ask for Help

What are your pain points? What is preventing you from asking for help?

How Outsourcing Jobs Can Actually Save You Money

What could you do with all the extra time that outsourcing a project might grant you?

Inside Sales Crunch?

What are some of your strategies to motivate your internal sales resource to success?